


Extra Credit

by Jadzia_Bear



Category: Captain America (2011), Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, Thor (2011)
Genre: Asgardians are party animals, Coulson Lives, Darcy can do a kickass impression of Natasha, Darcy teaches Steve about the 21st century, F/M, iPods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-19
Updated: 2012-09-04
Packaged: 2017-11-12 11:22:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/490350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadzia_Bear/pseuds/Jadzia_Bear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy Lewis makes a horrifying discovery--Captain America has no idea what an ipod is. She rectifies this situation. Also, other things happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Perfect Strangers

**Author's Note:**

> So I started writing this story thinking I had this brilliant and unique idea, only to discover that 'Darcy teaches Steve about the 21st century' is already totally a Thing. Oh well, here's hoping you'll still find something to enjoy in my interpretation :)

Darcy has never actually been formally introduced to Steve Rogers, which is totally understandable. She’s just an intern whose biggest claim to fame is that she has her own desk in Jane Foster’s dingy little office at SHIELD headquarters. Meanwhile, Steve Rogers is some kind of real life superhero experiment from the forties who’s back from the dead or something. 

She’s never heard of Captain America, never read the comics. All Darcy knows about him is what she’s heard in the halls, and SHIELD employees aren’t exactly known for gossiping around the water cooler. 

The first time Darcy sees him, she and Jane are getting coffees from the cafeteria. 

‘That’s him,’ Jane murmurs. With a minute jut of her chin, she points out an extremely well-muscled blond guy who’s sitting alone, hunched over his meal.

Darcy lets out a low whistle as she stirs her vanilla latte. Is this dude related to Thor or something? Because _damn_. His intimidatingly handsome face is a bit scowly, but over half a century on ice is bound to piss anybody off. Or maybe it’s just that his t-shirt is clearly too tight. SHIELD-issue tees must not come in super soldier size.

 

Jane gets caught up in some new astrophysical discovery for the next few days, so Darcy heads to the cafeteria by herself. He’s there again, alone and glaring mildly into his coffee. Darcy sits down at an empty table and plays _Zombie Farm_ on her phone while she eats her grilled cheese. She keeps her phone in her right hand (the one with her most agile thumb) and food strictly in the left hand only, because cleaning grease off the screen is a bitch.

When she glances up a bit later, just to check if Rogers’ shoulders are still as stunningly broad as they were a few minutes ago, it occurs to her that it’s no surprise he’s sitting alone. If he’s been frozen for seventy years, pretty much everyone he knows must be dead. Darcy tries to imagine what it would be like to wake up one day, only to be told that every single person she’s ever known is gone. Suddenly, the slightly pinched expression on the guy’s face while he eats his fries is unbearable. She shoves her phone in her pocket, dumps her tray and leaves.

On the third day, Darcy starts to wonder if Steve Rogers’ superpower is the ability to project his sombre mood like some kind of buzz-killing ray onto unsuspecting brunettes called Darcy Lewis (because, looking around, it would seem no one else is on the receiving end of a swift kick to the feelings courtesy of that slight but perpetual brow wrinkle). Deciding she can’t stand it a moment longer, she collects her tuna salad and marches over to his table.

‘Mind if I sit?’ she asks brightly, plunking her tray down and taking a seat. There’s a little voice inside her head asking what the hell she’s doing, but fortunately she’s had years of practice ignoring it.

He looks up, surprised, but recovers quickly. ‘Not at all, ma’am. Captain Steve Rogers,’ he says, extending a hand.

‘Oh, um, Darcy Lewis.’ Darcy’s only had a few handshakes in her life, and most of them were in job interviews, but she obliges, putting her hand in his huge one. ‘So, you’re new around here,’ she says, when nothing wittier springs to mind.

‘You could say that,’ he replies. She’s not sure if the thing he does with his mouth is a smile or a grimace.

As Darcy contemplates whether it’s appropriate to bring up his recent defrosting or his past life in the Dark Ages, they fall into an awkward silence.

She decides to stick to safe ground. She’s been talking about her new ipod for three whole minutes when Captain Rogers asks, ‘Uh, what’s an ipod?’

Darcy’s mouth snaps shut in a moment of stunned silence—because how the hell has no one told him about ipods yet!—and then she starts to explain. 

From that point on she explains _everything_ , just to be safe. He doesn’t really talk much, but he seems happy enough to listen to her ramble on. This works just fine for Darcy, because not only can she talk the ear off any creature known to man, while under wet cement and with a mouthful of marbles, but his expression of polite indifference is a massive improvement on barely suppressed melancholy.

When she gets back to her desk after lunch she googles him (which is totally not a weird thing to do), although running into Agent Coulson on her way out that afternoon turns out to be much more enlightening. By the end of that conversation, she knows all about the super-serum, Steve’s role in the war, Bucky, Peggy and the circumstances surrounding his “death” and recent recovery. She decides she made a good call not asking him about any of that. It all sounds either really personal and potentially angst-inducing, or like stuff people must always ask him about (she imagines ‘how did you get your super powers?’ must be to him as ‘why do you wear glasses?’ is to her). It’s not that she’s not curious, but seeing as her aim is to cheer him up, she decides to steer clear of all of that.

She keeps crashing his solo lunches, and by the end of the week, she actually gets a smile when she sits down next to him. 

‘I come bearing gifts,’ she says, pulling something out of her bag. ‘This is your very own ipod. It’s second-hand off eBay—remember eBay? I was telling you about it yesterday—but I didn’t think you’d mind. It seems to work okay.’

Steve frowns slightly. ‘Thank you, but I don’t really like any of the modern music I’ve heard.’ 

‘No worries, Captain, I’ve packed this one full of golden oldies, just for you.’ She pops in one ear bud and hands him the other. ‘Put this in,’ she says.

He does so, dubiously, and it occurs to her that maybe sharing earphones is an overly familiar thing to do with a WWII officer she only met a few days ago, but she kind of forgets about that when she hits play on a Cab Calloway track and Steve’s face cracks into a grin. Well, not exactly. Not even close, actually, but she figures this is probably the Rogers equivalent. His eyes crinkle with warmth and one side of his mouth ticks up a fraction. ‘I know this one,’ he says.

He doesn’t protest when she gives him a rundown on the ipod’s basic functions: how to play, pause, skip ahead and go back. She finishes her little tutorial by saying, ‘But remember, no one else can hear the music when you have the earphones in, so if you hum or dance along, you’re going to look like a bit of a tool—an idiot,’ she amends for his benefit.

‘So,’ she says, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and starting in on her lunch. ‘What do you actually do all day in this place?’ 

Steve is still staring at the slip of metal and plastic in his hand like he’s trying to fathom how so many songs could fit into such a tiny device. ‘Director Fury doesn’t want me back on active duty just yet, so mostly I just work out in the gym and get briefed on modern weaponry and the Armed Forces’ current campaigns. Also, I do Fury’s filing,’ he says, face perfectly straight. 

An almost-smile and now a joke? Is it possible her diabolical plan is beginning to work? She rewards him with a smirk.

‘And what about the regular everyday stuff you need to catch up on, like who Han Solo is or how to use Google? Is anyone teaching you about that?’ she asks, because obviously it’s an important question.

Steve shakes his head slowly, clearly at a complete loss.

‘Well then, this is your lucky day, my friend. I will be your guide to the last seventy years of popular culture,’ she declares graciously.

Steve doesn’t look anywhere near as impressed as he should.

 

Darcy can only imagine Steve’s lack of enthusiasm is due to the fact that he doesn’t realise just how qualified she is to educate him on all things pop culture. She loves to read (anything from Charles Dickens to Stephenie Meyer), her taste in music spans more than a few decades, she’s quite the movie buff and she’s watched a lot of TV. 

She spends a bit of time over the weekend considering her approach. Okay, a lot of time—pretty much the whole weekend, actually, because this is a unique opportunity. Provided her audience is willing (which is, admittedly, still to be determined), this could be a lot of fun. She daydreams briefly about forcing all her favourite things on him— _Battlestar Galactica_ marathon!—before remembering that with great power comes great responsibility. 

In the end, she decides to start with the forties, the stuff Steve can identify with, and work forward from there. After some googling, she thinks maybe Tolkien is the key. Even though _The Lord of the Rings_ was published in the fifties, it was written in the forties, and Steve may have even heard of _The Hobbit_ already, seeing as it came out in 1937. Thanks to Peter Jackson, people today are familiar with the characters, so she’ll actually be introducing him to some current pop culture at the same time. According to Wikipedia, the story was influenced by Tolkien’s experiences during military service, plus Steve just seems like the type of guy who would go for a classic tale of good versus evil.

She pulls _The Hobbit_ and _The Lord of the Rings_ trilogy down from the shelf above her bed and takes them to work with her on Monday.


	2. Friends

Steve has barely left SHIELD headquarters since he regained consciousness a few weeks ago. There’s enough to get used to _inside_ the building without braving the innovative chaos of the outside world just yet. Plus, Fury sends an agent to keep an eye on him every time he goes out, and being trailed, even by a friendly, is kind of unsettling. But, it’s a sunny day and he’s sick of staring at the walls, so he’s heading to the park to do some reading, mandatory agent in tow.

He walks down the street, trying to ignore the flashing billboards, gaudy shop fronts and general feeling of sensory overload, while Agent Hill remains a respectful half-a-block behind him. He rubs a thumb back and forth over the well-worn spine of the book in his hand— _The Fellowship of the Ring_ by J.R.R. Tolkien—and thinks about the girl who gave it to him.

He doesn’t even know what she does at SHIELD, which is funny, considering how much she talks. It’s almost irritating, that much chatter, but at least he doesn’t need to think of things to say. He’s terrible at talking to women (not that he can even think about “women” like that right now, with his grief for Peggy still so raw) but Darcy doesn’t seem to mind carrying the conversation for both of them. And she explains her modern references without him having to ask, which is actually quite considerate. 

When he reaches the park, he picks a bench under a tree and takes a seat, legs stretched out and ankles crossed. He nods to Agent Hill as she takes up a position near a lamppost, then looks down at the book in his hands.

Darcy seems so intent on educating him on everything he’s missed, and he should be grateful. He is grateful. It’s just that getting acclimatized to the future feels like letting go of the past, and that’s something he’s not prepared to do just yet. But he doesn’t like to mope and he’s always enjoyed reading, so he’s grateful for the distraction, at least.

 

Steve returns the Tolkien books much sooner than Darcy expects. 

‘You didn’t like them?’ she asks, with a little pout.

‘No, I liked them,’ he assures her. ‘I’ve finished them. It’s not like I have much else to do,’ he says, with a hint of what Darcy thinks might just be a bashful smile.

Fortunately, she's been planning ahead. She turns up the next day with an armful of library books, mostly classics from the fifties like _I Am Legend, To Kill a Mockingbird_ and _Animal Farm_ , and plonks them down in front of him.

‘Knock yourself out, champ,’ she says. ‘Hey, do you have your ipod with you? I want to put some new music on it.’

He slips it out of his pocket reluctantly, but makes no move to hand it over. ‘I actually really like the music that’s on it already,’ he says with a small frown.

Darcy sees his confusion and bites down on a laugh. “There’s still plenty of room on it, so I won’t take anything off, I’ll just put new stuff on. That okay?’

‘Okay,’ he concedes with obvious relief, passing it to her.

 

‘Rogers,’ says Director Fury, stopping Steve as they pass each other in the hall. ‘That Lewis girl, she causing problems for you?’

‘No sir,’ Steve answers crisply, wondering why the Director would even care who Steve eats lunch with.

‘Had the misfortune of sharing an elevator with her once, she talked gibberish the whole time. Longest damn ride of my life. If she’s getting in your way...’

‘It’s not a problem, sir, really,’ he replies honestly.

Fury continues down the corridor. ‘You just say the word, Rogers, and I’ll take care of it,’ he calls over his shoulder. Apparently he thinks Steve is just being polite.

‘Yes sir,’ Steve replies, because that’s always a good one to fall back on when he doesn’t know what else to say.

 

Like the books, Darcy continues to supply Steve with new music, slowly easing him towards 2012. For the most part she tries to shape the selections to his tastes, but some songs (“Yellow Submarine,” “American Pie”) are compulsory listening. 

Darcy also gets into the habit of picking up a different candy bar or flavoured soft drink for him each time she’s at the gas station, because it turns out he has quite the sweet tooth, and man, does he have some catching up to do in the junk food department (Ben and Jerry’s is going to blow his mind). 

She almost never sees him wearing that grimace of thinly veiled grief anymore, and certainly not once he spots her across the cafeteria. Despite the way she imposed herself on him in the beginning, she’s pretty sure this thing they’ve got going is now an actual friendship.

About a week later, Fury apparently decides Steve is adapting well enough to his new life to discontinue the agent babysitters and move him from his SHIELD quarters to a small apartment nearby. 

Darcy takes this opportunity to suggest a movie night, not that tag-along agents or a lack of venue have kept the idea on the shelf until now. She would have happily invited Maria or Phil along to a Star Wars marathon at her place (not that she could quite picture either of them reclining on her couch, for some reason). And, in any case, they could have just used Steve’s quarters at SHIELD. 

She’s been hesitating because she doesn’t want to keep insinuating herself deeper into Steve’s life if he’s not really up for it. That’s the problem with polite people, they make it so hard to tell sometimes.

So, Darcy raises the prospect of a movie night tentatively, but Steve seems really keen on the idea, saying that he used to go to “the pictures” a lot before the war. And that’s how she finds herself in Steve’s spartan, military-neat apartment one evening, teaching him to use the DVD player. 

She’s half tempted to just put on _Avatar_ , sit back and watch his head explode, but she takes the same approach as she did with the books and music, starting with stuff from the forties and then working their way forward, although with a little more wiggle room this time around. 

Basil Rathbone’s Sherlock Holmes turns out to be a hit with both of them. Steve read the books as a kid, and Darcy is a huge fan of some of the more modern interpretations of Holmes. They watch the whole Rathbone collection, then Darcy tries Steve on the newest BBC TV series.

‘She wasn’t in the books,’ Steve complains mildly, wrinkling his brow at the young forensic scientist on the screen.

Darcy throws a piece of popcorn at him. ‘What did I say? I said it’s an _adaptation_ and you have to keep an _open mind_.’ 

In amongst the new (or more accurately, new-to-Steve) stuff, they also do some really old movies that he likes and Darcy has always meant to check out. Apparently, _Frankenstein is one of his favourites_. 

‘After _Frankenstein_ , I’m totally getting you started on _Star Trek_ ,’ she says, as she switches off the lights and takes her spot next to him on the two-seater couch. ‘I think you’ll like the whole ‘nobler future for humanity’ thing it has going on.’

‘Cool,’ he says. Darcy bites her lip, trying to contain a smile. He definitely didn’t say “cool” like that when she first met him. He nods towards her half-eaten slice of pizza. ‘Are you going to finish that?’ he asks, because he always does. She passes him the plate wordlessly and hits play.

Darcy is kind of dubious about watching a film centered on a guy who is basically the result of a crazy lab experiment, but Steve doesn’t seem to make the connection. She supposes he doesn’t really have anything in common with the Creature anyway, except maybe that they’re both one of a kind. And both painfully alone, she thinks, with a twist of her gut. But for Steve, that was already changing.

 

As the music fades and the credits end, Darcy wonders which episode of _Star Trek_ she should bring next time. She looks over at Steve. He’s slouched comfortably back against the couch, a bottle of root beer in one hand and the near-empty bowl of caramel popcorn in his lap. His half-lidded eyes are still on the darkened screen when he says, ‘My best friend Bucky and I went to see that picture more times than I can remember.’ 

‘Oh yeah?’ Darcy says softly, in what she hopes is a casual tone. Because this is something new. She shifts so she’s facing him, moving carefully, like she’s trying not to startle a wounded animal. 

In all the time they’ve spent together, Steve has never actually said Bucky’s name. Darcy has stuck to her personal rule about not mentioning any of the potentially depressing stuff she knows about Steve’s history, and he hasn’t brought any of it up, either. But, apparently that’s changing now. She sits quietly and listens as Steve tells her about the first time he and Bucky went to see _Frankenstein_ and Steve thought it was so good he went straight home and read the book again, cover to cover, and then the third time they went, when they didn’t end up seeing the film at all because Steve gave his ticket away to a homeless kid outside the cinema, much to Bucky’s chagrin. Then he tells her about the time he and Bucky encountered their own real-life monster, in the form of Johann Schmidt in a Hydra facility during WWII. 

And that’s how Darcy finally hears Steve’s perspective on everything he’s experienced. It kind of becomes the new template for their evenings together. They have some dinner, Darcy cracks out the candy bar _de jour_ , they watch a movie or a few episodes of something, and then they talk softly on the couch in the semi-darkness. 

It’s not like he shares his _feelings_ or anything, Darcy doesn’t need a history lesson to know he was raised in a time when “real men” didn’t do that, but she can tell how much Bucky and Peggy meant to him by the way his voice roughens slightly when he says their names.

No matter how stoic Steve likes to think he is, everyone needs to deal with their grief somehow, and Darcy has always been a firm believer in the therapeutic benefits of talking. Without even meaning to, she encourages him, asking just enough questions to keep him going. For the most part though, she just shuts the hell up, because even though she’s a pro at jabbering, she’s also a pretty kick-ass listener.

 

And then the Avengers happens, and all that crazy shit with Loki that makes the stuff in New Mexico with Thor last year look like a day at Disneyland. Steve has less spare time now, but he also has a purpose. He has troops and something to fight for, and she imagines this must be what he was like in the war: six full feet of courage, conviction and determination. She doesn’t mention it to him, but the difference between Idle Steve and Busy Steve reminds her a bit of Sherlock Holmes with a case. _‘Give me problems, give me work.’_

They still manage to catch up fairly regularly in the cafeteria, and they have a standing arrangement for a movie night once a week, villainy permitting. And sure, maybe she’s kind of bummed out about not being able to see him as much because _maybe_ she has a teeny tiny crush on him, but half the women in the country are swooning over Captain America right now (because have you _seen_ him in that uniform?). She knows how to keep that shit under wraps, so, no biggie.


	3. The Bold and the Beautiful

Jane tells Darcy that they are both invited to a party at Stark Tower. It is, hands down, the coolest thing to ever happen in Darcy’s life (except of course for that time she got her photo taken with Nathan Fillion at Comic Con). Apparently it’s to celebrate the completion of repairs after Loki’s failed attempt to hand the Avengers their asses, but Darcy’s not really listening to that part because _she’s invited to a party at Stark Tower_. During the next couple of days, she goes on about the new dress she’s going to wear until Jane snaps at her to ‘shut up already, oh my god,’ but it lacks her usual acerbity. Jane’s mood has, unsurprisingly, improved pretty massively since Thor’s return.

Jane plans to 'travel' to the party with Thor (whatever the hell that actually means), so it’s arranged that Darcy will go in the Stark town car that’s picking up Steve.

When it pulls up outside her apartment, Steve jumps out before the driver has a chance and opens her door for her.

‘You look beautiful,’ he says simply, with a sincere smile.

‘Why, thank you,’ she replies with an overly dramatic flip of her hair, somehow unable to just accept the compliment in the same straightforward manner in which it was given. Her dress is a rich chocolate brown. She’s keeping things classy with a modest neckline, but it’s the sort of outfit that hugs her curves in just the right way.

‘You remind me a little of Peggy sometimes. She liked to wear red lipstick, too,’ he comments, once they’re both inside the car. 

‘Oh. Cool,’ says Darcy, although she has absolutely no idea whether reminding him of his long dead almost-girlfriend is a good thing or not. ‘You’re looking pretty handsome yourself.’

Steve glances down at his deep blue button-down and dark charcoal trousers. ‘Uh, thanks. Tony actually picked this out for me. When I asked him about a tie he said to leave the top couple of buttons open instead...’ Steve says, sounding unsure.

‘He was right, it’s totally working for you,’ she assures him. The colour does stunning things for his eyes, and the glimpse of tanned collarbones is making her mouth a little dry, but she figures he doesn’t need that much detail.

‘Actually, would you mind helping me with this?’ he asks, holding up a loose cuff. ‘I got one done up but I couldn’t get the other,’ he says sheepishly.

‘And you call yourself a superhero,’ she tsks, taking care of the tiny button that had managed to evade his big manly fingers. In the process, one of her fingertips accidentally brushes the soft skin on the underside of his wrist, which totally does _not_ send a delicious shiver down her arm, no sir. Be cool, Lewis.

‘So, any thoughts on what sights you want to check out next?’ she asks. They’ve taken to visiting popular locations around New York as part of Steve’s continuing education on the twenty-first century.

‘The zoo?’ he suggests, settling back into the seat.

‘Awesome! I haven’t been to the zoo in ages,’ she says.

‘Not as long as me,’ he says, with a hint of a smile. 

The driver takes them down into the parking garage below Stark Tower. They exit the car and head for the lift just as Clint and Natasha are doing the same.

 _In three, two, one,_ thinks Darcy. Before her eyes everything about Steve becomes fractionally more … square. He stands a tiny bit taller, straightens shoulders she wouldn’t have thought could be any straighter, even his jaw looks an infinitesimal degree firmer, if that’s possible. The transformation is so slight she almost wonders if she's imagining it, but she's seen it enough times now to know that she's not. At first she thought it was a work thing, that he felt the need to maintain an air of professionalism around his colleagues, but then she realised he does it around everyone. Everyone except her. 

So it’s not that he’s more serious around others, it’s that he’s more chilled out around Darcy. The idea that he shares a more relaxed version of himself with her, that she gets to hang out with ‘I freely admit to being bested by a button’ Steve while everyone else gets ‘Captain Rogers, reporting for duty, Sir,’ that's ... Well, she’s not exactly sure what that is, but it’s a unique privilege, and she treasures it.

Clint and Natasha both look striking in black, but that’s the case pretty much every time she sees them. While she’s spotted them around the halls of SHIELD headquarters often enough, she’s only spoken to either of them a couple of times, so she leaves it to Steve to make small talk with his fellow Avenger buddies as the four of them ride the lift to the party deck. 

The doors open and they step out into a sea of gorgeous people, loud music and Tony’s free booze. They’re there two whole seconds before Steve is being chatted up by a blonde woman in a white mini dress, whose waist is about the size of his arm.

Darcy plucks a champagne flute from the tray of a passing waiter and surveys the room.  
‘Darcy!’ shouts Sif, from a corner containing Thor, Jane, the Warriors Three and possibly a few Asgardians Darcy hasn’t met before. Darcy waves back at the grinning woman and wades through the crowd to join them.

 

Steve knows how to schmooze. It’s not his favourite thing to do, but he has plenty of experience: on tour hawking war bonds, at his movie premieres, even with the media just last week. Natasha and Clint flat out refuse to go on TV, no one makes Bruce do anything he doesn’t want to, and Fury would give his other eye if it would keep Tony away from the cameras. Fans, investors, politicians – Steve can manage them all. But tonight he’s not quite on his game. He’s feeling a little... distracted, and he’s not sure why. 

When he told Darcy she reminded him of Peggy, he was referring mainly to physical similarities—the colours she’s wearing tonight, the dark wavy hair—but it’s occurred to him in the past that both women share a similar quiet confidence. They don’t judge themselves by what others think of them.  
The thing he’s still mulling over, though, is how easily he’d said it. He’d thought of Peggy, said her name out loud, and for the first time it was more comforting than painful. He puts the thought aside for now and tries to focus on the woman in the skimpy tube of white fabric that apparently passes for a dress these days.

 

Two hours have gone by, and Steve is still no more than ten feet from the elevator. He’s lost track of the number of autographs he’s signed, hands he’s shaken, pats on the back he's received. He’s been cornered—for the second time—by a woman in an extremely revealing pink dress. In his efforts to avert his eyes from the more scandalous areas of her outfit, he finds himself looking past her left ear and watching Darcy on the other side of the room. She seems to be having fun with Dr. Foster and the others. Hopefully he can join her soon.

He’d told her she was beautiful, and she is, all dolled up like that, but the truth is she’s always this beautiful, with her shining hair and her full lips and her soft curves, and he’s not quite sure how he didn’t notice until now. 

To be fair though, he was hardly himself when he first met her. He wonders what else his grief may have blinded him to. There’s an indistinct buzz in the back of Steve’s skull, like there’s something he can’t put his finger on, and a corresponding rumble in his belly. He should really eat something. Even if he can’t get drunk from it, champagne on an empty stomach isn’t working for him.

The woman in the garish pink dress has been talking this whole time, but he has no idea what she just said. She grins slyly and presses a phone number into his hand. He puts the scrap of paper in his pocket with the other ones he felt obliged to take but will never call. As he does so, he notices Darcy is watching him. She looks away quickly when he catches her eye. Surely she doesn’t think... ? The idea that she might mistake his politeness for actual interest in any of these women is oddly unsettling.

‘Please excuse me for a moment, ma’am,’ he says, stepping away before the woman in pink has a chance to protest. He manages to get four whole steps closer to Darcy before his path is blocked by two young ladies in huge heels and tiny skirts who seem desperate to thank him for saving the city.

 

Thanks to the super-serum, Steve can’t get drunk anymore. He knows, he’s tried, and yet the way he’s feeling right now has him seriously doubting this well-established fact. It’s some time after midnight and Steve is still watching Darcy from the other side of the room, because at some point he stopped trying to get to her. Not because he doesn’t want to be with her, but because he realised just how badly he does want to be with her. The train of thought that had been running through the back of his mind all night had reached a destination. He knows now that his feelings for Darcy go deeper than friendship.

He’s not even sure when exactly he figured it out. Probably at some point after his 400th autograph, when he realized how much it means to him that she treats him like a normal person, not a superhero. Or maybe it was the moment he decided that he’d much rather be at home on the couch with her than here hobnobbing with the _Who's Who_ of New York society.

He feels like the champagne is in his veins, not his stomach, and he knows that this time he doesn’t want to wait. There are always wars to be fought, and you never know which day will be your last. Or when you’ll get a second chance.

As soon as they have a quiet moment away from the noise he’s going to ask her to be his girl (he wonders briefly if people still do that). Steve extricates himself from a conversation with the Deputy Mayor, who has been describing the city’s rebuilding plans to him in impressive detail for the last twenty minutes, and heads determinedly towards Darcy.

 

The Asgardians can party like no one else. Their corner of the room is by far the noisiest, what with the raucous singing, occasional brawling and periodic smashing of glasses. Fortunately, Tony doesn’t seem offended by the willful destruction of his property, plus there’s some kind of seriously souped-up robot vacuum thing that swirls past their feet every few minutes to clean up the mess, so everything’s peachy.

Tony knows how to throw one hell of a party, and Darcy is having a truly spectacular time, but that’s still not quite enough to negate the fact that Captain Heartthrob has a steady stream of botoxed beauties eager for his attention. He chats to them for varying lengths of time and accepts several discreetly proffered phone numbers. Perfectly understandable, Darcy thinks, as she throws back the rest of her champagne, smashes the glass in the path of the robot vacuum and reaches for another. She wonders if Steve realises one of them is an actual supermodel.

Steve is on his way to Darcy’s side of the room when the Barbie in the bright pink dress with the neckline that plunges _literally_ to her navel attempts to corner him for a third time. Darcy doubts Steve’s delicate sensibilities are particularly impressed by that innovative bit of tailoring because he just dodged around her and now he’s striding across the dance floor and she’s tottering behind him in hot pink pursuit. Darcy likes to think that what happens next can be blamed on the alcohol, but it’s entirely likely she would have done the same thing dead sober. 

As soon as Steve is within reach, she hurls her now-empty champagne glass at Barbie's feet and pulls him behind a wall of Asgardians. Barbie stands there stunned while the Super Roomba whirls around her heels.

‘Another!’ cries Darcy, thrusting a fist in the air. A cheer rises up and Volstagg and Fandral throw their glasses at the floor obligingly. It has the desired effect. Barbie skitters back a few steps, bites one neon pink lip in hesitation, then beats a hasty retreat.

‘Thanks,’ says Steve gratefully. He seems to be blushing a little, no doubt a bit embarrassed about the whole situation.

‘Sucks to be you,’ she grins, bumping him with her shoulder.

He looks like he’s about to say something, but before he can, Thor is clapping a massive arm around each of them.

‘Darcy! Steven!’ he booms. ‘You must drink to my ancestors!’ 

Darcy’s pretty sure she’s already done that at least three times tonight, but who is she to argue with the God of Thunder? Thor steers them towards the table where Clint is waiting with a round of drinks. As he passes one to her, Darcy wonders faintly at what point exposure to stunningly sculpted biceps reaches toxic levels, because this is getting kind of ridiculous.

 

The lights of the city skim past as Stark’s town car winds its way towards Darcy’s apartment. Her eyes are closed and her head is resting against Steve’s shoulder, but that doesn’t stop her from engaging him in a somewhat rambling discussion about the pros and cons of artificial intelligence. 

At the party, he couldn't wait to get her alone and declare his intentions, but with each passing mile Steve’s more firmly convinced that he shouldn't say anything about his feelings for her, not tonight at least. 

He’s closer to her than to anyone else, even Tony, and the thought of messing that up makes his throat constrict. He didn’t even know how to do this sort of thing in his own time, let alone now. And when it comes to her feelings about him, he’s flying blind. Is her head on his shoulder simply the behaviour of a tipsy friend, or something more? Judging by how some of the women at the party acted, apparently these days you just throw yourself at the person you’re attracted to, and yet he’d gotten the impression from the mandatory SHIELD sexual harassment seminar that it was inappropriate to even touch a woman without her permission. Darcy is his guide to decoding the twenty-first century, but this is one question he can’t ask her. 

In any case, their friendship is too valuable to risk getting this wrong. He’ll lay low for now, gather more intel, come up with a plan. 

The car pulls to a stop in front of Darcy’s apartment building.

‘I’ll walk you to your door,’ he says, undoing his seatbelt. 

‘Nope,’ she says surprisingly firmly, scooting away from him. ‘Not so think as you drunk I am.’ It comes out sounding more sober than he expects. 

‘M.A.S.H. reference?’ he asks.

‘Gold star, Padawan,’ she confirms, patting his shoulder and then carefully climbing out of the car. 

‘G’night.’ She gives a little wave and closes the door. 

He watches her walk away, for now.


	4. Parks and Recreation

Steve leans against the railing and watches a gorilla expertly manipulating a toy filled with food as Darcy makes her closing argument.

‘So, yes, I agree there are certain things, like the Kardashians, and Double Down Chicken Sandwiches from KFC, that are unspeakably gross, but I still think the progress we’ve made in areas like technology and animal welfare,’ she sweeps a hand towards the gorilla enclosure, palm up, ‘outweighs the other stuff. Personally, I love living in the future,’ she finishes. 

‘Living in the future? I thought I was the only one doing that,’ he says, trying to figure out if she’s making fun of him.

‘Uh-uh,’ she disagrees, pushing away from the railing. They continue down the path towards the next enclosure. ‘Well, okay, technically yes,’ she concedes, ‘but it’s something Wil Wheaton says. You know, the guy who plays Wesley on _Star Trek: The Next Generation?’_

He knows, because Darcy’s teachings have been thorough.

‘You know how they have those things on the _Enterprise_ that look like ipads? Well, when I was watching the show as a kid, ipads didn’t exist. We weren’t even _close_ to having that sort of technology. I remember hoping that by the time I was a granny I’d get to see stuff like that. And now here I am, in my twenties, and not only do they exist, but I freaking _own_ one.’

She pauses briefly to steal a sip of his soda.

‘So iphones, ipads, instant messaging, video chat, computers that can play Jeopardy—all this stuff that blows your mind—or that _doesn’t_ and I tell you it _should,_ ’ she says pointedly, poking him in the ribs, ‘it blows my mind, too, because I also grew up in a world where it was just science fiction,’ she finishes with a shrug of one shoulder.

Hearing her spell it out like that makes Steve realise how much her honesty and enthusiasm have affected the way he’s been processing the new world around him. Seeing 2012 through a different lens could be a potentially dispiriting experience—say if he’d only had his SHIELD briefings on things like North Korea and 9/11 to go on. This century is full of things that are both amazing and terrifying. Darcy doesn’t sugar-coat any of the negative aspects of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, but she makes it seem like the good balances out the bad. 

They stop at the African wild dog enclosure.

‘You must get pretty bored listening to me talk about ‘the olden days,’ then,’ he says, only half kidding.

‘Actually, no.’ She smiles softly, her eyes following the brightly coloured dogs as they chase each other around the enclosure. A strand of hair falls forward over her face and he has to tamp down the urge to tuck it behind her ear for her. ‘I think old stuff is really cool, too. The fact that you can tell me firsthand about a world where people got by without Saran wrap or electric guitars, or even televisions? That's pretty epic.’ 

Steve has to smile at that. 

Before the serum, women had flat out ignored him, and since then they’ve mostly just thrown themselves at him. He’s at a loss when it comes to navigating the terrain in between, the area where personality and emotions come into play. Case in point, he still has no read on Darcy's feelings. 

‘Besides,’ she adds, wandering over to an information sign, ‘the fact that you know how to survive under such primitive conditions means you’ll be really useful when the zombie apocalypse hits,’ she informs him, completely deadpan.

‘Zombie apocalypse?’ he asks skeptically. 

She rounds on him in mock offence, her blue skirt swirling around her thighs. ‘You, who fight aliens, gods and super villains for a day job, you’re really going to draw the line at _zombies?’_ she demands, a grin threatening to break loose.

Steve hesitates. It’s possible she has a point.

 

Darcy toes off her shoes and props her feet up on the desk. Not the classiest move, considering she’s wearing a skirt, but she’s alone in the office and at this angle there’s no risk of flashing anyone who happens to walk by, not that it’s exactly crowded this far down in the bowels of SHIELD headquarters on a Friday afternoon. Or ever. Mind-numbingly dull computer simulations play out across the screen as she uncoils another paperclip to add to her scale model of the Millennium Falcon, created entirely out of office supplies. 

Her masterpiece is nearly complete when a slightly disheveled Captain America appears in the doorway. There’s no sign of the shield or helmet, but he’s in the stars and stripes, the cowl pushed back to reveal blonde hair in a mild state of disarray.

‘Hey,’ he says with a tired smile. 

‘Hey you,’ she smiles back, oh-so-casually returning her feet to the floor.

‘I’ve got five minutes to kill before my debrief with Director Fury, mind if I come in?’

 _‘Please,’_ she groans, waving him in, ‘I’m bored out of my _brain_ in here.’

He comes in and leans against the spot on the desk where her feet had been. He’s kind of sweaty and there's a smattering of green goo across the shoulder of his uniform. Darcy is briefly tempted to comb a few fingers through his hair, straighten it up for him, but she keeps her hands to herself.

‘Giant space caterpillars again?’ she asks.

‘Uh, yeah’ he replies, glancing down at the evidence on his uniform. ‘Not dangerous, but extremely unpleasant. And a heck of a traffic hazard.’

Steve is literally the only person she knows who uses words like ‘heck’ and ‘gal’ and ‘jiminy’ without a trace of irony. It’s number 74 on the list of Things That Make Steve Rogers Utterly Adorable.

He rubs one eye with the heel of his palm and his shoulders hitch minutely with a quiet sigh. For Steve the Stoic, this sort of behaviour is pretty much the equivalent of a nervous breakdown. He hasn’t even chastised her for wasting stationary, yet. 

‘What’s up, soldier?’ she asks.

He looks at her in surprise and quickly straightens up. ‘Nothi—’ he begins.

 _‘Dude,’_ Darcy interrupts. ‘Don’t insult me with that whole ‘infallible leader’ routine. Like a taquito from a gas station, I’m not buying it.’ She fixes him with an expectant look. ‘Spill.’

For a long moment he says nothing. Finally, he puffs out a breath and puts a hand on the back of his neck. Darcy gives herself a mental high five. 

‘It’s nothing in particular,’ he says. ‘There’s just been so much going on lately, and this century is so busy, so noisy, sometimes it’s all too ... Anyway, it’s fine, I just need some sleep,’ he finishes, trying to play it off with a half-hearted smile.

She knows (because he's told her, and because he’s always up for 'just one more movie,' even if it’s already 1am) that because of the super-serum he doesn't actually require that much sleep. What he needs is a break.

‘Hey, I have an idea,’ Darcy says suddenly. ‘Why don’t we go camping? Like, now. Tonight.’   
His expression remains carefully guarded. Not exactly the response she was hoping for, but he doesn’t say no. She keeps talking.

‘Just for a day or two. I can read a book and you can... I don’t know, run up a mountain or wrestle bears or something. It’ll be all quiet and peaceful,’ she says, her tone becoming kind of singsong as she tries to sell the idea. 

He quirks his mouth. ‘It won’t be quiet if you’re there.’

‘Har har,’ she says, punching him in his impossibly perfect arm. ‘So what do you say?’

‘What if something happens while we’re gone? What if I’m needed here?’ he says in what Darcy calls his captain-y voice.

She realises it should probably bother her that in the context of this conversation, “something” could mean over-sized bugs demolishing a city, an attack by an alien armada or a bajillion other threats to mankind's very existence that she can’t even begin to imagine.

‘Then they can chopper you back, just like they do with the other guys when all hell breaks loose and they’re off doing other stuff,’ she says.

The wrinkle between his brows downgrades from concerned to considering.

Darcy presses her advantage. ‘When can you get away from here this afternoon?’

He leans closer to check the time in the bottom corner of her computer screen as he stands up, and it’s like she can feel his personal space brush against hers.

‘The debriefing should be finished by three,’ he says.

‘Perfect! I’ll get everything ready to go and pick you up at your place around five.’

‘Alright,’ he concedes. ‘But if New York gets eaten by some kind of giant radioactive bunny over the weekend because Captain America wasn’t here to save the day, it’ll be on your head,’ he says with mock solemnity and leaves the room.

‘That’s just silly,’ she calls after him, grinning. ‘Everyone knows giant radioactive bunnies only eat giant radioactive carrots!’ 

 

She’s actually been planning this for a while. A month or so back she started wracking her brain for a place Steve could go to forget about the fact that he’s seventy years in the future. She figures camping should help him unwind, because surely the trees and the sky still look the same. Personally, she’s not a _massive_ fan of sleeping on the ground and having nowhere to charge her laptop, but maybe it will be good for her to take a little break from living in the future, too, now that Steve's given her a new perspective on the past. 

She’s been sourcing ye olde camping gear a piece at a time since she had her little brainwave: a kerosene lantern, a musty old canvas tent, those scratchy ropes that aren’t brightly-coloured nylon. She’s not aiming for period-specific, just to limit the uber-modern stuff as much as possible. There are still a few things she hasn't had a chance to track down, but she has enough to get them through the weekend.

As she loads the gear into her rust bucket of a station wagon, she can’t help but wonder what kind of a person volunteers for the exquisite torture of sharing a tent with Captain goddamn America, knowing there’s less than zero percent chance he’ll invite her into his sleeping bag.

Going away for the weekend with a friend she’s head over heels for surely falls within the realms of Darcy’s more dubious plans, but if she finds herself in a position where she’s about to make a fool of herself, she just needs to remember that the guy gets hit on by _actual real life supermodels, for god’s sake._ For all her smarts and charm, Darcy knows she doesn't stand a chance against that.


	5. Mad About You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coulson lives ;)

‘Hey, Cap.’ Steve turns in surprise. Tony waves him over as Fury and the rest of the team file out of the briefing room. Tony is headed for the door too, but his progress is slowed significantly by all the swiping and tapping he’s doing on his tablet. He barely glances up as he says, ‘Got two tickets for the Mets game this weekend. Pepper and I can’t make it, thought maybe you and your little lady would be able to use them.’ 

‘Darcy’s not my...’ Steve glances towards the door and their retreating team mates, lowering his voice. ‘We’re not ...’ despite his best efforts, he knows he's blushing, ‘... it's not like that.’

‘Oh, I just ...’ The tapping stops. ‘Seriously?’ Apparently, this warrants two full seconds of eye contact. 

‘Why do you sound so surprised?’ Steve asks guardedly.

The tapping resumes. ‘Don't get your star spangled spandex in a twist. I just thought, you know, going by the way she was sneaking glances at you across the room at the party, and, more specifically, the way she was looking at all those adoring fangirls of yours like she wanted to tase every last one of them in the face, but whatevs. So you want those tickets?’

It takes Steve a moment to realise he’s supposed to respond. ‘No, thank you. We have other plans.’

‘What, surely it doesn’t take all weekend to polish your shield?’ Tony says absently.

‘We’re going camping,’ Steve answers, ignoring the jibe because he knows now that’s just the way Tony is.

Tony snorts, the hand with the tablet dropping to his side. ‘But it’s “not like that,” huh?’ He gives Steve a clap on the shoulder and a knowing wink. ‘You kids have fun!’ he says and saunters out the door.

Steve trails after him into the hall, but keeps his mouth shut because he suspects further denials will only make things worse. Turns out Tony’s capable of making things worse all on his own.

‘And remember to put a cap on Little Cap, you know what I’m saying?’ Tony calls over his shoulder as he walks away, leaving Steve standing outside the briefing room. ‘Has anyone filled you in on the sexual revolution? ‘Cause things have changed, man. Hey, Coulson!’ he shouts as he rounds the corner. ‘You want some Mets tickets? You can have them if you give Cap the safe sex talk…” 

Steve is blissfully happy when he can no longer hear Tony’s voice.

He nearly jumps out of his skin when he realises Director Fury is standing on the other side of him. 

‘Rogers, got an assignment for you,’ he barks, turning on his heel and striding off in the other direction.

‘Yes, Sir,’ Steve says, hurrying to catch up.

 

Darcy has just finished stashing a couple of day’s worth of food in the cooler in the back seat, and she’s about to turn the ignition and pull out of the grocery store parking lot when her cell rings. She fishes it out of her bag and allows herself a goofy smile as she reads Steve’s name on the screen.

‘Hey! I’m just about to head to your place, what’s up?’ she asks.

‘Hi Darcy. Bad news, I’m afraid,’ Steve says on the other end of the line, his voice flat.

Some of Darcy’s enthusiasm starts to bleed away. ‘Oh?’

‘Director Fury’s just told me to attend a ribbon-cutting tomorrow morning for some new government facility in Los Angeles. I fly out in a couple of hours.’

Darcy’s stomach tightens into a cold knot. Clearly, Captain America’s superpowers don’t include lying, because that one was terrible.

‘If you didn’t want to go camping you should’ve just said.’ She’s going for cool indifference, but what comes out is more biting than blasé. 

‘Darcy, it’s not like that, I promise. I’d much rather be spending the weekend with you,’ Steve says, and okay, he does sound pretty earnest.

‘What, so, some random last minute ribbon-cutting crops up on the other side of the country and they have to send Captain _America?_ ’ she asks.

‘You know what it’s like, Darcy. When Fury says jump, I don’t exactly have a choice,’ he says, resigned.

‘Yeah, I know,’ she concedes with a sigh. 

‘Can we reschedule for next weekend?’ he asks, sounding hopeful.

‘Sure, no problem’ she says, because what else is she going to say? ‘Okay, well, have a good trip and I’ll see you when you get back, I guess.’ She tries to force a modicum of cheeriness into her voice. 

‘Thanks. And Darce? I really wish I was going camping with you instead.’ He sounds so sincere, it’s making her chest hurt.

She decides she better end the call before her voice cracks. ‘Me too, big guy. Go catch your flight.’

Darcy drops her forehead onto the top of the steering wheel and sighs. 

It’s not a big deal. She’ll just go home and unpack all the crap she just spent ages loading into the car. It’s irritating, but it’s fine.

She slouches back in the seat. She’s disappointed, but mostly it pisses her off that Steve still needs some down time, and he’s not going to get it. Could it really be that important to have him specifically at this event? If it was, surely Fury would have told him about it earlier.

After a long moment, she straightens up, starts the engine and heads straight for SHIELD headquarters.

 

The doors part and Darcy stalks out of the elevator and down the hall towards Director Fury’s office. She can hear that little voice in her head, the one that’s demanding to know why the hell she’s trying to get herself fired. She ignores it, because she’s not even sure she has an answer. 

‘Don’t mention the eye, Lewis,’ she mutters to herself. ‘Just don’t mention the eye.’ It was something Coulson had said once, and it was the only bit of advice she’d ever heard on how to deal with Nick Fury. She’d spoken to the director once before, but it was just to make small talk in the elevator. She thought she’d been perfectly pleasant, but all she got for her troubles was a cycloptic glare.

She’s never been to Fury’s office before, but she expects there must be some sort of intimidating assistant you have to get past before you see the man himself. Some conservatively dressed, tight-lipped woman who will turn Darcy back before this harebrained plan of hers can go any further. 

There isn’t. There’s a desk where said assistant must usually reside, but there’s no gatekeeper on duty. Fury must have already left for the day. She’s not sure if she’s disappointed or relieved. She tries the door handle, just in case. All too quickly, the door is swinging open and Darcy is realising she should have knocked first.

Fury looks up from behind his desk, pen poised over an open file, single eye glowering at her.  
‘I don’t recall you having an appointment, Ms Lewis,’ he says coldly, returning to his paperwork.

‘Yeah, no, this is definitely an impromptu, spur of the moment, seat of the pants-type thing,’ she says, taking a few cautious steps inside.

‘And the purpose of this visit?’ he asks warily, looking all but convinced he’s going to regret giving her the opportunity to open her mouth.

Darcy inches closer to his desk, not too close, though. There might be booby traps. She takes a deep breath and tucks her hair behind her ears. ‘Okay, so, um, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, and if you haven’t, that would be totally understandable,’ she starts, fluttering a hand in the direction of his eye patch.

_Shit._

Darcy has never wanted to kick herself so hard in all her life. She presses on, though, heat rising in her cheeks. ‘But, um, I just think Captain Rogers is feeling a bit overworked. I’m not saying you work him too hard, or anything like that—and he didn’t say anything, so please don’t think that he was, you know, saying anything—’ she’s babbling and she knows it, ‘but I just get the impression he could really use the weekend off and sending him on this trip to L.A. pretty much shoots that to hell.’

The director puts down his pen, laces his hands together on top of the desk, and fixes her with the full focus of his one good eye. Darcy swears her insides are shriveling up. There is no doubt in her mind that this is what it feels like to be a rabbit caught in the sights of a panther.

‘Let me tell you what I’ve _noticed,_ Ms Lewis,’ he says in a tone that makes Darcy’s toes curl. ‘I’ve noticed a man who works his ass off, who puts his life on the line without hesitation, who asks for nothing in return, and who doesn’t deserve to spend his down time being _hassled_ by _groupies.’_

Darcy is no longer awash with terror. She’s bristling with indignation. She squares her shoulders. 

‘I assure you, sir,’ she says drily, ‘my intentions towards your super soldier are nothing but honourable.’ It’s the truth, no matter how she might feel about Steve. 

She must still have some sense of self-preservation, because she eases back on the throttle as she adds, matter-of-factly, ‘He looks like crap and he needs a break, and you and I both know he’d never ask for it himself, so that’s why I’m here asking for him.’

Fury’s eye has narrowed. She has absolutely no idea what that means. He’s probably already sent some kind of silent signal to Barton, who’s about to drop down from behind a ceiling tile and put an arrow through her neck. She kind of wishes he would, then at least she’d stop talking. ‘Send _me_ to L.A. if you want. I’ll wear a red wig and tell them I’m Natasha, just give Steve a couple of days off.’

Fury scans her dismissively. ‘I seriously doubt you could pull that off.’

Darcy crosses her arms over her chest, lets her eyelids grow heavy with condescension and chews on the inside of her lip with something that looks like irritation. Then, in her best approximation of Natasha’s deadpan, she says, ‘I’m delighted to be here today for the opening of this amazing new facility.’

Fury’s face is unreadable for a long moment. He looks down at his desk, and when he looks up again his shoulders are shaking with silent laughter.

‘That’s very impressive, but that won’t be necessary,’ he informs her, unable to fully suppress a grin. ‘I’ll inform Captain Rogers that his presence in Los Angeles is no longer required.’ 

Darcy’s eyes pop. ‘Really? I mean, awesome, thanks.’

She’s already headed for the door when he says, ‘And Darcy, unless you have a death wish, I’d make sure Natasha never finds out you can do that.’ It’s not a threat, just some sage advice from someone who’s known the Russian assassin a long time. ‘And knock next time.’

‘Yes, Sir.’ She flicks him a smile and a little salute as she closes the door. She makes it all the way back into the elevator before collapsing against the wall. 

 

When she finally picks Steve up, he greets her with a relieved smile that no doubt mirrors her own. There’s very little of her conversation with Director Fury that she wants to share, so for now she decides to keep it to herself.

Steve throws his duffel in the back and Operation Time Warp begins. The skyscrapers grow small in the rear view mirror to the swinging sounds of Glenn Miller, Bing Crosby and Duke Ellington. It seems the pop culture education has become an exchange, because it's Darcy's ipod they're listening to.

They arrive at their destination with just enough time to set up camp before it gets dark. Steve hauls the heavy canvas tent up on its thick wooden poles like it was as light as a modern day pop-up polyester deal. He doesn’t comment on the outdated equipment and Darcy starts to wonder if he’ll even notice. She could just point it out, of course, but it’s hard to shine a light on one’s awesomeness without detracting somewhat from said awesomeness.

She’s not so invested in that part of the plan anymore, though. Mainly she’s just grateful they’re even here at all. She makes them a simple meal over the campfire as the last of the daylight disappears and the crickets begin to chirp. Steve offers to help with the cooking, of course, but she tells him to get himself a drink from the cooler and take a load off. She reckons he’s starting to look more relaxed already.

After dinner, Darcy goes over to her bag. Her phone still has reception and it’s been hours since she checked Facebook, but she leaves it tucked away in the side pocket. This weekend is about getting away from the 21st century. She cracks out a pack of cards instead.

They play Go Fish and Crazy Eights on a blanket next to the campfire. The warmth of the fire holds back the chill of the night air, the flames over-bright in contrast to the pitch black that circles the edge of their camp. They’ve snagged a spot well away from the other campers, so the only sounds are the crackling of the fire, the hum of insects and the distant lap of a lake against its shore.

Once Steve has royally kicked her ass at Gin, Darcy leans back on her elbows on the blanket. ‘Look at the stars with me,’ she says, tugging on his sleeve until he lies back, shoulder to shoulder with her. ‘I work for an astrophysicist, so I know, like, all the constellations.’ Steve throws her a skeptical look. ‘Well, maybe five.’

He listens patiently while she points them out, then the conversation wanders in other directions: crazy things that happened while chasing celestial phenomena with Jane, stories from their childhoods, tales of pranks soldiers played on each other in their down time. Well, the less risqué pranks, at any rate. Darcy bets they got up to far worse, but when she needles him for juicier tales she only gets an overly straight, ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ and possibly an eye twinkle.

‘That wick is burning down,’ he says at one point, sitting up to adjust the kerosene lamp. ‘It's funny, for all the advances over the last seventy years, camping gear sure hasn’t changed much...’ His voice trails off.

He sweeps his eyes over their camp like he’s seeing it for the first time, then pins her with a quizzical look.

Darcy grins. Finally! He may be Captain America, but he's no Sherlock Holmes. She sits up next to him.

‘Well,’ she tells him slyly, ‘I tried to keep things old-school.’

‘But...why?’ he asks, a soft smile of amazement on his lips.

‘I wanted it to feel like home,’ she says with a shrug.

‘I don’t need to go back in time for it to feel like home.’ 

She would think he was totally dissing Operation Time Warp, except for the way he says it: quietly, like the words are just for her. His gaze is unmistakably warm. Normally she wouldn’t maintain eye contact with him for too long, afraid he might read something (the truth, for example) into her gaze. But this time she holds it, even if doing so makes it a little hard to breathe.

‘Not anymore,’ he adds. One of her hands is on the blanket between them and he covers it with his own. ‘You’ve made the present feel like home more than I ever thought it could.’ 

_This can’t actually be happening,_ thinks Darcy, as her heart does a ‘this is actually happening!’ dance inside her chest.

Steve looks down at his shoes for a moment. ‘You know, there is one thing you haven’t brought me up to speed on.’

‘Oh yeah? What’s that?’ she manages to say.

‘How to kiss a girl in 2012,’ he says, his blue eyes meeting hers again.

‘Oh,’ she says, trying not to drown in them. ‘Well, how about you give it a try and I’ll let you know if anything’s changed.’ Darcy thinks she really deserves some sort of medal for managing to deliver an entire sentence under such challenging conditions. He smiles at that and closes the distance between them. 

Kissing Steve Rogers is even better than she’s imagined. His kisses are like everything else about him, gentle, but confident, and more of a turn on than they should be. Somewhere in the back of her mind she registers that this is the exact opposite of what she told Fury she was going to do, and that people who lie to Nick Fury probably don’t have long to live, but also that it was totally worth it.

Turns out, kissing is one thing that hasn’t changed at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like to think that The Scene After The Credits for this story is Steve and Darcy in a sleeping bag together, sweaty and relaxed in each others arms, Darcy telling Steve about her conversation with Fury, much to Steve's amusement.
> 
> My sincere thanks to you for reading all the way to the end :)


End file.
